Hughes in sight of Stampeders’ franchise record for sacks

Rita Mingo, For the Calgary Herald09.26.2013

Calgary Stampeders defensive lineman Charleston Hughes already has 13 sacks on the season, tied for the CFL lead with Winnipeg’s Alex Hall. The Stampeders franchise record is 19, set by Harold Hallman in 1986.

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Asked if he happens to know what the Calgary Stampeders’ record for most quarterback sacks in a season is, Charleston Hughes, eyes a-twinkle, smiles broadly.

“Maybe . . .” he said, before laughing out loud.

No doubt, the Stamps’ top-notch defensive lineman has heard that 19 is the most sacks recorded, that accomplished in 1986 by Harold Hallman. With six games left in the 2013 CFL season, Hughes has a league-leading 13, tied with Winnipeg’s Alex Hall, so breaking the record is doable.

“It would be nice to reach that number or get as close as I can,” he admitted, “but we’ll see what happens.”

One person who wouldn’t be surprised to see that standard fall is his defensive co-ordinator, Rick Campbell.

“The two things I admire about Charleston is he’s very consistent; he shows up every day to practice and he shows up to every game, you know what you’re going to get from him every week,” noted Campbell. “And he’s a guy that wants to understand the game, wants to understand what the offence is trying to do and takes advantage of those things.”

The Stamps left on Thursday night for Guelph, where they put their 9-3 record on the line against the Henry Burris-led Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 6-6, on Saturday. The last time these teams met, Calgary eking out a 26-22 victory two weekends ago, Hughes added to his sack total by dumping Burris on his backside twice, something which apparently gives him infinite pleasure.

“I guess it’s very inspiring to myself and the rest of the D-line to know that you can sack Henry and take him to the ground and he hates every minute of it,” Hughes chuckled.

“I think he’s more comfortable in the offence that he’s in. He knows his players a lot better than he did in the past. I think he’s playing actually quite good with the players that he has. It’s one of those things; Hank is a veteran and all you have to do is surround him with a group of good guys and he’ll make it work.”

The job of the Calgary defence on Saturday is to see that Burris doesn’t make things work, either on the ground or in the air. In that last meeting, the former Stamp threw for 408 yards and two touchdowns, as well as a pair of interceptions.

“We need to have tighter coverage,” conceded head coach/GM John Hufnagel. “We gave them some throws; we have to make them contest those types of throws. We need to be disruptive, get into the offensive backfield and also get some good jams on the receivers, to shut down their timing and their rhythm.”

The Stamps’ pass rush, led by Hughes and Cordarro Law — who has contributed with nine sacks to a team total of 41 — has improved over the past half-dozen games, much to Campbell’s satisfaction.

“We’ve done a good job,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate to have some guys up front who can win one-on-one, meaning they can win their matchup, and that’s been good for us. We’ve tried to mix in some blitzes and do some things to keep the offence off-balance.

“We have to find some way to make him uncomfortable with the pass rush because if you let Henry stand back there, and he’s not under duress, he can pick you apart. So we need to do a great job of getting some type of pass rush, winning one-on-ones or creating it through a blitz.”

NOTE: To put the whole sack thing in perspective, the year that Hallman posted the individual record of 19, the Stamps racked up an astounding 85 sacks — also a CFL high mark.

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